Much of this area has transitioned from small towns into urban centers. One of
the things that may result in higher temperature readings at the same weather
monitoring station in such places is less local vegetation, more structures and
parking lots. Tracking historic temperature readings provides no compensation
or consideration of such factors. Higher recorded temperatures may be caused by
local urbanization or other similar effects, rather than climate change.

@ 1covey: The precession of the earth's axis? Now why didn't
scientists think of that?

Oh wait - they did.

We are
currently in the mid-range of the precession distances. Our temperatures should
be somewhere between average and warmer winters with cooler summers for the
northern hemisphere and colder winters and hotter summers in the southern
hemisphere.

Well, it is partially right - the southern hemisphere
is having hotter summers. But so it the northern hemisphere. Obviously, there
is more at play here than just the angle of the earth.

Believe it or
not, scientists are not myopic and do consider lots and lots of factors when
making their determinations of what is currently affecting global climate. And
all the talking points you are going to hear have already been examined by them.

That is an issue
that comes up at times. However, over the past 30 years, the satellite datasets
(UAH, RSS) show the same warming trend as the surface observation datasets
(.12-.14C/decade), so generally the heat island effect issue is handled well
(that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions).

Last summer we had several record hot days in SE CO where I live. Summer was
also long. Our heat wave began in spring and continued right into fall, with few
moderate days. This year we had a cold spring, which froze virtually all the
fruit blossoms. Then when the weather heated up, we still had many cool days
right through this month. It is very dry here so the cooler weather is welcome,
and I am totally grateful that our bedroom, with no A/C has a window that has
brought in cool breezes at night all summer long. Maybe August will be hot, and
I will have to change my thinking, but thus far, we have not had a hot summer.

In the article the climatologist said "The top seven warmest Julys on record
have all occurred since 2002". This is the new normal folks, get used to
it. Climate change is here and it isn't going away.

I love the use of anomalies to be evidence of ones beliefs. A cold January
means global warming isn't happening, a hot July means evidence of global
warming at a runaway rate. Yet we know global warming has been going on for the
past 10,000 years. Switzerland recorded the fastest glacier melt rate in the
1940s, faster than they are retreating currently. They recorded glacier
advances in the 1950s and again in the 1980s.

The earth is now 11%
greener than it was a few decades ago, attributed to increased CO2 and warmer
temperatures. And somehow this is bad? The federal government is greatly
concerned about rising sea levels, so they rebuild New Orleans below sea level
now, and they do nothing to prevent damages to New York resulting from services
being built below sea level.

Solution, increase taxes on energy.
Control population. In the meantime, scientists can't predict anything for
sure when it comes to climate.

CO2 is not pollution, and don't
make the argument about being in a room only filled with CO2. Because being
sealed in a room of pure oxygen would kill you also. Yet we don't have any
program to limit oxygen.

We had
the 9th coldest January and the other winter months were near average (after all
December was part of the warmest year on record for SLC). If you want to claim a
coldest you need to add a "since ____" in there somewhere.

"That does not add up to global warming, as even scientists now admit.
(They now call it climate change for this reason) "

Somewhere around Genesis 1
or 2 God told us one of our jobs was to take care of his creation. That means we
also have the capacity to mess things up. Pollution issues, acid rain, the ozone
hole, we definitely have a track record of causing issues related to the
atmosphere. So what I don't understand is despite evidence of our creating
and addressing problems... this one is somehow deemed impossible.

"In 1985, scientists from
the British Antarctic Survey found a giant hole in the ozone layer of
Earth's atmosphere over the South Pole. This discovery prompted a largely
successful international effort to ban CFCs, the chemicals largely responsible
for man-made thinning of the ozone layer.

Unfortunately, a new
analysis from Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) suggests that
stopping ozone depletion may actually increase global warming and speed up sea
level rise. This discovery pits two important environmental missions against
each other..."

We now know the EPA policy about CFC's is
causing additional global warming.

We see that government cures for
what ails you do not always result in solving problems. Thus why do we expect
government taxes and cures over and above education of the masses as a better
solution.

SCAR scientists (not talk show hosts) attributes 4 meters
of future sea level rise to the attempts to fix the ozone layer. So why is a
reduction in CO2 and temperatures, going to help where we already have an 11%
greener planet due to the increases that have already occurred. The one thing
science has not determined is best temperature.

But, wait... I was told during some of the coldest months on record that
tempurature is not an indication that global warming did not exist. And yet now,
a lot of comments say that this proves that global warming does exist.

So which is it?

You really have us confused with this "we
control the weather" thing here.

Not exactly (though you might consider this a
semantics issue). What was going on is that while we were throwing greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere we eventually also had a spike in the amount of aerosols
we were putting up there (think pollution problems) that caused global dimming
which has a cooling effect. Our regulation addressed the latter issue. So
it's not so much that we're causing additional global warming,
it's that we were causing both warming and cooling (this is a large part of
why the trend was flat from the 50s-70s) but now we have the anthropogenic
warming component but reduced our anthropogenic cooling component.

So... sure we could undo that regulation, but do you really want to make our
air pollution problems even worse?

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), said specifically decrease in
the ozone problem equated to a direct melting of the Ice sheets and global
warming. Caused by a change in wind directions and currents, not by dimming
issues. And no I don't propose changing the CFC regulation, the point is
you think you are solving a problem doing one thing and in effect you create
more problems. Science has not allowed for all the variables for what they
propose. Are you saying also that we should reverse the 11% greening that has
resulted from the additional levels of CO2 and warmer climate? Can you provide
us with the correct temperature that the earth should be maintained at?